Best Drama Movies of 1917

Gwen's family is rich, but her parents ignore her and most of the servants push her around, so she is lonely and unhappy. Her father is concerned only with making money, and her mother cares only about her social position. But one day a servant's irresponsibility creates a crisis that causes everyone to rethink what is important to them.

Donald MacTavish, the last chieftain of his clan on an island off the coast of Scotland, dies at sea. This leaves his only daughter, Marget, to assume the responsibilities of leadership. Marget's burden is partially eased by her blossoming romance with Jamie Campbell. But there is a secret from Jamie's past that neither of them know about.

June a young orphan is befriended by Perry Boscam when he shares his lunch with her on the road to Rising Sun to take over his father's saw mill. The soon fall in love and marry only to find out that a women in Perry's past has come to town to make trouble. Teaming up with the local political bully they set out to make Perry's life miserable.. but June sticks by her husband to the end.

The lead Florence La Badie plays dual roles. Clever editing is used for the scene where her two characters meet. La Badie, however, does appear twice within a scene via superimposition, but that's in a flashback-within-a-mirror scene. There are a couple such scenes where La Badie's reflection in the mirror reflects her reflective melancholy mood.

The model Fede loves the writer Arte, but he is enmeshed by the beautiful Femmina. Fede takes comfort in the Faun, a mythological creature who becomes animated from the stone sculpted by Arte. The love story with the Faun represents a return to a dreamt wildness impossible by now, for the modern man, to reach and maintain.

A young American has her ship torpedoed by a German U-boat but makes it back to her ancestral home in France, where she witnesses German brutality firsthand.

A young girl travels west to live with her uncle during the California Gold Rush only to find that he has been killed by Indians and his identity assumed by an outlaw.

In the film, Cunard is a jewel thief pursuing the same wealthy marks as another thief played by Francis Ford, brother of director John Ford and himself a director and character actor.

Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917) is a silent film directed by Marshall Neilan based upon the novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin. This version is notable for having been adapted by famed female screenwriter Frances Marion. The film was made by the "Mary Pickford Company" and was an acclaimed box office smash.